Welcome to the 2024 Texas Children in Nature Network Summit held in Waco, Texas!
After registering for the Summit and making your Wednesday Workshop selection, you will be enrolled in your selected workshop by TCiNN staff. You will see your workshop on your schedule after you have been enrolled.
You do not need to select and add your workshop to your schedule.
All workshops are "frozen" and only staff can manage enrollment.
If you do not see a workshop option on the registration form that is listed on the workshop PDF, that means it is full and no longer available.
Concurrent Sessions and additional Summit details will be added as the Summit approaches so please check back to see what’s new and to build your Summit schedule.
Presenters: Courtney Crim, Ed.D., Associate Professor, Department of Education, Trinity University Laura Allen, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Education, Trinity University Location: Cameron Park at Lawson’s Point, 1-4 p.m. 2601 N. University Parks Dr, Waco, TX 76708 Strands: Nature for All, Physical & Mental Health
Our bodies share the same elements as the beings we meet in natural settings. Humans are nature, but we have allowed ourselves to become separated. During this guided forest therapy walk, you will experience the effects of shinrin-yoku—the Japanese practice of bathing your senses in the surrounding forest. The trained certified forest therapy guides will help you slow down by using a standard sequence of invitations that deliberately move you out of your head and engage your senses as you reconnect with the world around you. They will provide multiple ways for you to experience walks so everyone can participate in a way that meets their needs.
These walks are not strenuous and use gentle invitations to increase awareness, deepen connections, and elevate well-being. Honoring the spirit of shinrin-yoku, this experience will close with a tea ceremony featuring tea made from plants native to the forest. Participants will benefit firsthand how forest bathing can impact individual well-being which in turn benefits their educational interactions with children, experience invitations that can be transferred to their own contexts and examine research linking nature experiences to improved wellbeing. Please bring a water bottle and something to sit on.
